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tv   [untitled]    December 12, 2012 4:00pm-4:30pm EST

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he's the man who promised hope and change but when it comes to his record critics argue his foreign policy is just more of the same we'll take a look back over the past few years and draw some interesting comparisons between president obama and his predecessors. on journalists pick up their press badges they accept the risk that comes with the job but one journalists in california is suing the l.a.p.d. for the abuse he suffered while covering the occupy protests his story. and construction of the keystone x.l. pipeline is experiencing yet another roadblock this time coming from a texas judge we'll bring you the latest in this saga and show you who stands to gain the most from it.
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it's wednesday december twelfth four pm here in washington d.c. i'm liz wall in you're watching our team. we begin with the international uproar after north korea test launched a long range rocket and the greater foreign policy implications north korea says it's an experiment to put a satellite into space but the u.s. japan and south korea are among the nations that fear that this is a step toward the secretive nation launching a long range nuclear weapon north korea of course part of what's been infamously dubbed the axis of evil it was president george w. bush that first put the label on the group of countries during his state of the union speech back in two thousand and two states like these and their terrorist allies constitute and actually should be evil arming to threaten the peace of the world. by seeking weapons of mass destruction these regimes pose
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a grange and growing danger. on north korea iran and iraq make up this axis in a basket or john bolton took it a step further and deemed three more nations as part of this access he said quote beyond the axis of evil there are other rogue states intent on inquiry acquiring weapons of mass destruction particularly biological weapons first syria first libya there is no doubt that libya continues its longstanding pursuit of nuclear weapons the united states also knows that syria has long had a chemical warfare program and has a stockpile of nerve agent the nerve agents have sarin and is engaged in research and development of the more toxic and persistent nerve agent v.x. well you goes on to add cuba to that list and well that was in the bush era back in the bush era era and here we are today weeks away from president obama's
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inauguration to his second term as president in the nobel peace prize winner campaigned under the promise of hope and change and presented himself as the anti bush our iran policy is a complete failure right now and that's the policy that john mccain is running on he has nothing to offer except the naive and irresponsible belief the tough talk from washington will somehow cause iran to give up its nuclear program and support for terrorism i'm running for president to change course not to continue george bush's course well despite the promise about the country on a different track than his predecessor is he really much different we've heard some of the same fears echoed in the obama administration these past few weeks listen to secretary of defense leon panetta saying almost the exact same thing as former ambassador bolton when it comes to syria harboring weapons whole world watching very closely and the president i would say she's made very clear that there will be
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consequences. there will be consequences if the assad regime makes a terrible mistake by using chemical weapons on their own people. well it was president bush that launched the war on terror but it president obama kept it going and kicked it up a notch targeting targeted killings state secrets the n.s.a. spying on citizens of guantanamo bay all of this happening to a heightened degree under president obama and drone seems to be president obama's weapon of choice the use of them spiked under his administration obama authorized two hundred eighty three strikes in pakistan that six times and more than bush drone deaths under obama are four times higher than under bush and this chart here puts it into perspective we see during the bush years strikes were minimal but then you see them skyrocket after obama was elected the peak as you can see being in two thousand and ten and while it decreased since then it's still much higher this year
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than it ever was under bush so despite the promise to take a drastically different foreign policy approach instead it seems when obama's foreign policy doesn't mirror that of bush it actually takes it a step further and the axis of evil remains just as much of a threat today under president obama. well you turn now to another case of police brutality we saw many violent examples of it when the occupy wall street movement was in full force now a journalist is suing the los angeles police department former reporter calvin milam of los angeles's city news service says police attacked him when he was trying to cover occupy wall street last year some of it was caught on camera. says officers with the l.a.p.d. tackled him to the ground put it. and detained him for hours without charge he says this was all for just trying to do his job or to correspond are among the landau
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covered this protest and joins us now to talk more about this case higher mon a month tell us more about what you know about this case well liz we got a hold of a copy of the lawsuit which has been filed here in los angeles court alleging that the civil and constitutional rights of calvin milan who we saw in the video were violated now this all stems as you mentioned from the arrest last year during the raid of occupy l.a. now in the initial reporting the following the arrests the police department gave the press a story about the way that mr milan had been behaving in the reason why he was arrested but obviously the video showed that he clearly displayed his press badge to officers in that he was not as drunk and belligerent as they had initially claimed it couldn't tell us what was in charge or what exactly he is accused of.
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that's right well initially he was arrested and charged for unlawful assembly now eventually those charges were dropped and that's really a main argument of the defense here the say which is suing the city of los angeles they say that there's no reason that he should have been arrested for unlawful assembly because an unlawful assembly had not been declared according to defense i spoke to the attorney representing. the journalists today margaery goes in what he told me about the l.a.p.d. and their story is that they are lying through their teeth interest saying in ramallah i know that you were there so you kind of saw this all go down firsthand can you tell us i mean i know that he wasn't the only one how many people were arrested and my understanding is that he wasn't even the only journalist no you're absolutely right liz now there are nearly three hundred people arrested during this raid know most of these i mean virtually everyone was a peaceful protest or while we were there we didn't observe anybody raising their
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hand or throwing anything at police and as you mentioned besides the journalist who is suing the city of los angeles currently there were. other journalists who were arrested and including tyson heater who we talked to afterward i mean he was seen with a black eye and bruises in the coming days after his treatment from police and we also spoke to investigator investigative reporter yasha levine who was also arrested kept in jail for a couple of days and according to him he even got scabies from his time in jail following this raid and as you mention these are all peaceful protesters and generalists who were there doing their job wow. what is next for this reporter. right well we talked to the attorney representing him and the journalists who is suing is very anxious to take the stand and give his side of the story no he says
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that the police the defense attorney mark geragos says that the police have distorted the facts we also talked to the l.a.p.d. this morning who said that there is nothing to say they see the cases in litigation and they are getting ready for to defend them themselves in court as well ok i do want to take a moment ramona and talk more about the police stance because they have recently come out and said that. they confuse me along with another individual who was drunk at the scene but in addition to that they are kind of a defending themselves saying that. he ignored clear directions that were given to him and charged to the security line he talked more about what the police are saying it's very well they've been playing damage control ever since that they claim that he was drunk and belligerent and then the video showed otherwise now they have said that he was not following police orders and that he rushed through the line but at the same time we can see in the video that he is. representing
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himself as a journalist showing his press badge which an l.a.p.d. press badge does allow you to cross police lines if it is safe to do so and beyond his right to be there i mean in the lawsuit clearly points out that here is a practicing journalist and as a practicing journalist he has a first amendment right to be at the scene of a news story to cover it so that's another one of those violations that's been alleged that which was violated by the l.a.p.d. every month and last i want to ask you because i know you spent a lot of time cover not only the occupy wall street protest but also cases of police brutality over there in l.a. is has something like this happened before. when it comes to large mass protests and reporters there absolutely has been a very poignant case back in two thousand and seven massive mady rallies hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets police crackdown very heavily not just
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on the crowd but we're seeing hitting journalists with but tons eventually these cases resulted in more two million dollars payouts on behalf of the police department for protestors and for the journalists themselves who were injured and the l.a.p.d. even said that they were going to change their practices when it comes to dealing with the press and dealing with large crowds but from what we see at the rate at occupy l.a. and now this lawsuit from the journos it seems that there still are many lessons to be learned thank you that was our team correspondent mungo and. well it is no secret that obesity is a public health problem in the u.s. but beyond americans health could be affecting our national security the turns out obesity is the leading cause for making people in eligible to join the army take a look at the numbers between one thousand nine hundred eight and two thousand and ten the number of active duty military personnel being overweight or obese more
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than tripled in two thousand and ten more than eighty six thousand troops are five point three percent of the force received at least one clinical diagnosis as overweight or obese and during the first ten months of this year the army down more than sixteen hundred soldiers for being out of shape that's about fifteen times higher than in two thousand and seven well typically when you think of military guys you think of men in tip top shape could you be looking right there to the evolution of the american soldier from r n y soldiers waistlines are expanding u.s. navy seals smith joins us now hi there still. so what is going on here why are soldiers getting fat. well this is nothing new liz we've been doing this for. decades now dealing with a growing population and i'm fortunate lee the military is just a segment of society in today's society we are overweight so you're saying that
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this kind of just what we're seeing now in the military is a reflection of a problem we're seeing in the civilian population yes it is it's a national problem not necessarily a military problem a military has standards and for decades the military is here to those standards and you know when you don't meet the standards not only are you overweight and not meeting height weight standards but they are also failing the fitness standards which really makes it dangerous for them to be doing these kind of jobs right but you know i know that you're a navy seal and i've heard about the really intense training that you do and isn't that just part of being in the military that you need to be in shape and they kind of drill you to make sure that you do stay in shape yes well i mean there are many jobs in the military especially in the special operations side where it is very physical so not only do you have
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a regular form of exercise your job is also expanding calories however there are many jobs in the military that are quite sedentary and you're sitting down at a computer just like anybody else ok so we see that this problem in the civilian population is kind of spilling over into the military population but could it be too that the military is now being more picky since it doesn't need as many people with winding down of the wars. oh absolutely at the end of every war there is a drawdown and now everything has so height weight standards have sees the fitness standards have to be if you have any criminal a criminal issue like a dui or something like that i mean those things also have teeth now meaning that the military can easily release you if you're not adhering to those standards. ok
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we would put those figures earlier on but those figures are just in the army i think when you think about the navy and the air force and other branch of the military are being experiencing the same problem well my experience is is all the military as well as law enforcement and fire fighting it is throughout all three branches. you will see is just as many stories about police officers as well as firefighters have and it's the same issues it's like that is nothing new it is our society that is. we're just seeing a spillover nothing new but it does seem like it's definitely getting worse especially in the wake of these new new figures. you obviously obesity i mean it's been called an epidemic a national epidemic and obviously it's a huge problem it's a public health could it be that a problem to national security now that we're seeing it affect the military.
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absolutely i've been studying this since one thousand nine hundred ninety five i mean this is nothing new very i remember seeing incoming. troops come in there and more than fifty percent of them could not pass the physical fitness standards on day one so this is not the new the fact that the alarming volume of people that are getting picked out for me that is definitely a story. that yeah i mean in. the first ten months of this year the army kicked out over sixteen thousand soldiers so it's a problem not only getting in now as a civilian but already those that are already enlisted are. gaining too much weight i guess. so so i want to ask you what is the mill you know how is this prompting this problem now that it's been identified as a problem the military to reexamine its training programs and i guess how do you
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get these soldiers back in shape well the military has actually spent a lot of money on hiring physiologists a lot more trainers so it's not just some drill sergeant that is getting people into shape it is actually. trainers that are helping out. ok i do want to ask you because we are seeing the battlefield and this definition of the battlefield what that is and what that means kind of changing we saw especially under the obama administration the use of drones expanding so with what with warfare you know as you said a lot of these these soldiers they have jobs where they're seven terry and you know when you're operating a drone you're pretty much operating remote or remote control so couldn't that a job like that lead to the fattening of a soldier as well where you know to be honest with the i mean you have.
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when you are. being out of business standard drought a height weight standards you know about it immediately and you have usually over a year to correct that issue the fact that people are getting kicked out for. quite some time to get their stuff together and the fact that they didn't get it done. you could say the military did make me work out but that's not really their job really interesting to obesity i guess affecting national security guy who would have thought thank you very much for coming on the show that was u.s. navy seal. also ahead with all of the roadblocks in the way the stone x.l. line is looking more and more like a pipe dream than before we'll tell you about the latest move to stop construction and tell you who stands to gain the most from this project.
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also there's a disconnect with the fifty or forty what actually happens we can accept to something to download. lead.
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and i do a story coming from texas where a judge will hold that construction of the keystone x.l. pipeline attacks as landowner named michael bishop filed a lawsuit against trans canada that's the company building the pipeline from alberta canada down to the gulf of mexico well the pipeline would transfer tar sands but bishop said that trans canada lied to him and other landowners when they said the pipeline would transport crude oil tar sands however our solids bishop is also worried the pipeline will contaminate his land while a texas county judge court judge signed a two week injunction that will halt work on bishop's property it went into effect
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yesterday but on december nineteenth when the injunction ends what will happen to the pipeline that mulla has reported that trans canada isn't the only one with the state and the pipeline susan rice current ambassador to the u.n. and possibly the next secretary of state has between three hundred and six hundred thousand dollars worth of investments in trance canada that's in addition to other tar sand companies and canadian banks trance canada though has more than susan rice the company the canadian company contributed over one hundred twelve thousand dollars in the u.s. two thousand and twelve election cycle and as you can see both barack obama and mitt romney were among the top recipients so if you follow the money is there a bleak future for michael bishop and others challenging the keystone x.l. pipeline i'm joined now by investigative journalist greg palast nice to see you there greg. so this is only temporary it's
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a temporary injunction that the judge granted what happens next. well according to mayan calendar it will be permanent because the world went today about midnight but if that doesn't happen i expect that it's going to be a tough time there was more it's going to be a tough time for the x.l. pipeline because the the complaint says something interesting is that look this was the crude oil and it's not it's it's glop it's it's pretty hard to call the tar sands oil it's really asphalt it's just that it's been melted it's as if you took your street and melted it down and as soon as it is it the hits cooler air it becomes solid this is junk in gunk and so i think that this is just the beginning for the x.l. pipeline but the real the real power here the real danger the real political force here are the koch brothers who are not the owners of the pipeline they're not
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yours the oil but they are the intended recipients of the oil this is very very important to their refineries on the texas gulf coast the koch brothers refineries run can only handle heavy crude oil which they get right now from hugo chavez and they don't want to get it from hugo chavez or venezuela because venezuela charges a very heavy price for heavy crude so this is all about the money and it's all about the koch brothers and that's the real story here and you know we did break down there susan rice among bottom public officials that have a stake over this pipeline so people like bishops really stand a chance when they're up against a lot of these people and big players in the public sector also apparently having a stake in this. well sure i mean every major movement environmental action has always been against the big boys and the and the big oil companies and sometimes
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the people when the environment wins you know mother nature has a fairly good track record in court and so it's not a locked deal here because it won't be just bishop once he wins is injunction this could open the door to a whole bunch of other landowners saying hey wait a minute there's a list threaten the property my property by running this glop through the pipelines not the usual texas tea that's coming through it's not crude it is kind of lewd or well it's really nasty gloppy stuff and if this pipe breaks it got a big they'll have a really big problem so i don't think that that's a lock you know even after all whether it's susan rice or. hillary clinton and there is pretty much any feeling within the state department that we ought to let this through. and you know the reason why one of the reasons cited for for
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building this pipeline and a lot of talk about energy independence do you think that this pipeline now well lead the united states to energy independence and the idea is crazy because remember i said that the oil ends up on the gulf coast of texas at the well lerato and sunoco refineries own now owned by koch loyal the koch brothers and that while will be responding and the gasoline will be sent to the caribbean were they just a much higher price then in the us i mean if the idea were energy independence you would have to run a pipeline slash across the entire continental united states from canada to the gulf coast you would you would move that oil into the upper midwest really do need crude oil for eating. this is not for the u.s. it's not make us energy independent it's all about making money for the koch brothers all right i mean i mean as we have seen this pipeline has proven to be very controversial then this isn't the first legal battle that we've seen regarding
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the keystone pipeline can you just kind of go over some of the other some of the other precedents what well let up to today well we started out with the fact that it's international doesn't go north through the normal process of being reviewed by the environmental protection agency but rather by the state department and the state department gave it a green light however. because the u.s. congress republican said that it had to go through yet to run this big nasty pipeline across the united states of america the entire continental united states because it goes right over america's biggest water source for. america's biggest aquifer. because of that. the year of the obama administration what we need an environmental review which you do in any big project but the
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republican congress said in order to prove the pipeline obama would have to waive any environmental review well you know the guys running for reelection is not politically suicidal so he said i will not approve it under those conditions that held it up republicans overreached and people want oil but we know that right now the cia. long term analysis is that without the canadian oil the u.s. already will be in surplus because in north dakota elsewhere we know a tremendous amount of shale oil oil out of the ride certainly we can keep this conversation going on unfortunately we are at a time mr pals appreciate you coming on that was investigative journalist greg palast. before we go it is that time of the year again where we start to say goodbye to two thousand and twelve google is out with their two thousand and twelve year and report that looks at some of the big events across the world the this year
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and report flashback news stories that gained worldwide attention and if you noticed at one point our team got a shout out so we just wanted to thank those all for that plug we're going to leave it off there make sure to tune in and a half hour of their back. download the official ati application to the cell phones choose your language stream quality and enjoy your favorites from alzheimer's l.t.v. is not required to watch audited all you need is your mobile device to watch r.t. in any time of the. culture is that so much about the taxpayers' money maintaining a zation a certificate a lot of people at area and. this is the stated goal of the international office in limerick important just as.
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the fifty feet if. you. need. sixty.

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